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PS Australia

We had already decided at last week’s meeting . . .

. . . that we would do a bit of a hoo hah this week to promote our Aussie cousin, PS Australia . . . and what better way to start than with a healthy extract from a hugely enthusiastic review of Jack Dann’s epic DREAMING IN THE DARK anthology written by Colin Steele at SF Commentary. Take it away, Colin:

“The good genre news is that Pete and Nicky Crowther, founders and publishers of the British specialist genre imprint PS Publishing, have begun an Australian publishing operation, PS Australia. Well known author and anthologist Jack Dann is PS Australia’s Managing Director.

The first PS book to appear, DREAMING IN THE DARK, edited by Dann, brings together a number of Australia’s leading science fiction, fantasy and horror authors, whom Dann labels under the catch-all term “Australian fabulists”. It’s a nicely produced hardback with cover and artwork designed by Greg Bridges. An illustrated slipcased edition, signed by the contributors, and limited to 200 copies, is also available.

As ever with anthologies, there is a wide range of stories in style and content and DREAMING IN THE DARK is a collection to be much welcomed and a fine beginning for PS Publishing in Australia.”

Hey, way to go, Colin.

DREAMING IN THE DARK [an anthology edited by Jack Dann]

A celebration of Australia’s current Golden Age of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and magical realism. Jack Dann—the multi-award-winning author and co-editor of the classic Dreaming Down-Under, the anthology that “has been credited with putting Australian writing on the international map” and the first Australian book to win a World Fantasy Award—has collected a wonderfully eclectic range of short fiction that showcases what our best fantasists are doing right now at this genre-bending moment in time.

CONCENTRATION [a collection by Jack Dann]

JACK DANN’S groundbreaking anthologies Wandering Stars and More Wandering Stars used the tropes of science fiction, fantasy, and magical realism to ask—and try to answer!—what it means to be a Jew. In his new short-story collection Concentration, Dann enlists the techniques of fabulation to illuminate one of the defining events in human history: the Nazi Holocaust.

WAKING IN WINTER [a fantasy novella by Deborah Biancotti]

On a far, frozen desert world, Muir the pilot discovers an ancient artefact in the ice. She sees a mermaid at first, but later comes to wonder if it is Ningyo, a fish god from her homeland in Japan. A god that brings misfortune and storm. A god that—by all means possible—should be returned to the sea. The rest of Base Station Un see something else. Bayoumi the lab rat sees Sekhmet the lioness goddess, daughter of the sun god. Partholon the creep finds in its shape a ‘good, old-fashioned cruxifix’. But all of them want to possess it. All of them want it for themselves.

Winter Children and Other Chilling Tales collects some of Angela Slatter’s finest horror stories to date. From the Lovecraftian laments of “The Song of Sighs” and “Only the Dead and the Moonstruck” to the uncanny notes of “The October Widow” and the stunning new “The Red Forest”, it’s clear that Slatter is, in the words of Stephen Jones, ‘a powerful and eloquent voice in horror fiction.’ Each tale is a darkly crafted gem.

So that was PS OZ 2016. What about 2017/18?

Well Jack Dann has found us another raft of stars for our schedule, here they are:

THE BOOK CLUB, a novella by Alan Baxter

ODIN’S GIRL, a novella by Kim Wilkins

PHANTOM LIMBS, a story collection by Margo Lanagan

A DYNASTY OF DRAGONS, a novella by Janeen Webb

UNGENTLE FIRE, a story collection by Sean William

THE RAYS SLIP AWAY, a novella by Veny Armanno

And Terry Dowling’s complete ‘Rynosseros cycle’

And more on the way but we’ve got to keep a few things under the hat.

“Alan Baxter’s THE BOOK CLUB is nearly ready to go to the printers,” Nicky tells me, “and ODIN’S GIRL by Kim Wilkins is being copy edited as I write this.

“Also hitherto unallocated are possible reprints of Terry Dowling’s acclaimed CLOWNS AT MIDNIGHT (PS, 2010), Will Elliott’s THE PILO FAMILY CIRCUS (2008) alongside Jack ‘The Man’ Dann’s PROMISED LAND (subtitled ‘Stories from another America’) from 2007. And yet didn’t we say we’d calm down the line-up a little?”

Heh, who can remember. But thanks Nicky.

So what are you waiting for? Check out some of these wonderful titles from way down under!